To answer these trivia questions, please email me at scinema@earthlink.net.
Brain Teasers:
Which Italian Western, in its English language version, has the line, "God bless his soul. Aw the hell with him."
It was from ANCHE NEL WEST C'ERA UNA VOLTA DIO, aka BETWEEN GOD THE DEVIL AND A WINCHESTER.
Which American actor, who played Hercules, was awarded the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Award on February 9, 1978?
No one has answered this question yet.
What John Ford directed movie featured a plot idea also used in A REASON TO LIVE A REASON TO DIE?
No one has answered this question yet.
Can you name two Italian Westerns in which Guy Madison played a priest?
Tom Betts, George Grimes and Bertrand Van Wonterghem knew it was IL FIGLIO DI DJANGO, aka SON OF DJANGO, aka THE RETURN OF DJANGO, and REVERENDO COLT, aka REVEREND COLT.
In which Italian Western is Fernando Sancho's gang called "The Sidewinders"?
Tom Betts and George Grimes knew it was ARIZONA COLT, aka THE MAN FROM NOWHERE.
Which American who played Hercules was crowned Mr. Universe in 1950?
Tom Betts, Bertrand Van Wonterghem, George Grimes, Charles Gilbert and John Black knew that it was Steve Reeves.
And now for some new brain teasers:
In which Italian Western does the villain recruit new members of his gang by freeing the prisoners from a prision?
In which Italian Western does our hero crack open a coconut with a ball on a string?
Which American actor who played Hercules was awarded "The Greatest Physical Culturalist of All-Time" in 1973?
Name the movies from which these images came.
Bertrand Van Wonterghem identified last week's frame grab of Gian Maria Volonte in FACCIA A FACCIA, aka FACE TO FACE.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
Bertrand Van Wonterghem and George Grimes identified last week's photo of Jacques Sernas and Jeanne Valerie in SALAMBO, aka THE LOVES OF SALAMBO.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
Bertrand Van Wonterghem and George Grimes identified last week's frame grab of Telly Savalas and Charles Bronson in CITTA VIOLENTA, aka VIOLENT CITY, aka THE FAMILY.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
No one identified the above photo.
It shows Tatsuya Nakadai in INN OF EVIL, directed by Masaki Kobayashi.
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I am interested in knowing what movies you have watched and what you enjoyed or not. So please send me an email at scinema@earthlink.net if you'd like to share. Here's what I watched last week:
Enjoyed:
EDUCAZIONE SIBERIANA, aka SIBERIAN EDUCATION, aka DEADLY CODE (2013) - Based on a novel by Nicholai Lilin, aka Nikolai Verzhbitsky, director Gabriele Salvatores' film tells of the honor code of Siberian criminals. John Malkovich plays Arnas Fedaravicius' grandfather, who teaches our hero how to be an "honest criminal". Unfortunately, our hero's best friend doesn't want to follow the rules and a deadly conflict results. Peter Stormare plays the clan's tattooist while Eleanor Tomlinson is radiant as the simpleminded young woman our hero is duty-bound to protect.
YELLOW EARTH (1984) - The first feature film by Chinese director Chen Kaige is set in 1939 and tells of a Communist soldier sent into the Northern countryside to collect folk songs which can be rewritten and used to bolster army morale. This was also the first film for lead actor Xueyin Wang, who would later appear in Marvel's IRON MAN 3. The soldier arrives as the villagers celebrate a wedding, but he is concerned that the bride seems miserable. Staying with an old man who has a daughter and a son, the soldier sympathizes with the plight of the poor family. He shows kindness to them, and brings hope to the daughter with tales of female emancipation in the south. The daughter is too shy to sing her songs for the soldier, but we hear her lament about the plight of poor girls who must submit to arranged marriages. The family is heartbroken when the soldier announces that he must leave, and the daughter tells him that she wants to join the army. He tells her he'll ask his leader about this and promises to return. However, he fails to return before she is forced to marry. One day, the girl tells her brother that she can not wait any longer and is going to cross the river to join the army. She is singing the Communist song the soldier taught her and her brother, but suddenly her voice stops and the brother fears that she has drowned. Later, the village celebrates the army calling up the young men to join, but when the soldier goes to the family's home, it is empty. Drought has hit the community and everyone is out praying to "Grandfather Dragon" to bring rain and save the people. The brother thinks he sees the soldier arriving and fights through the crowd to get to him, but is seems he only imagined him. This is a remarkably downbeat film from Mainland China, but beautifully photographed by future director Zhang Yimou.
HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE, aka HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE (2001)
Mildly enjoyed:
ANXIOUS TO RETURN (1979) - It is 1939 and Peisi Chen is a Communist soldier on the march against the Japanese. He is wounded and finds aid from a variety of Chinese civilians as he tries to return to his military troop. After a stint working with a group digging for gold and a stint as a slave laborer for the Japanese in a coal mine, our hero is taken in by a widow with a son. The last half of the movie is about the growing love between our hero and the widow, but, in the end, he must remain true to his vow to fight until the enemy is driven from his country. Jun Li directed.
EL CASO DE LA MUJER ASESINADITA, aka THE CASE OF THE MURDERED WOMAN (1955) - Originally produced at El Teatro Maria Guerrero de Madrid in 1946, this play by Miguel Mihura and Alvaro de Laiglesia was first made into a film in Argentina as EL EXTRANO CASO DE LA MUJER ASESINADA in 1949 featuring future Italian Western actor George Rigaud. In 1953 the play was revived by the Teatro Espanol de Madrid featuring future Italian Western actor Jesus Puente. In 1955, Chile born director Oscar Herman Davison, aka Tito Davison, made a film version in Mexico which featured Jorge Mistral, who would appear in both Westerns and Sword & Sandal movies made in Spain. As I saw this movie without English subtitles, I'll provide a translated synopsis: "Mercedes is a wealthy woman who shares her boring life with her husband Lorenzo and the servants Teresa, Rosaura and Renato, in a chalet outside of town. One night, Mercedes has a strange dream in which a couple, accompanied by a Sioux Indian, enters the house claiming that it is their own home. They refuse to leave and threaten to call the police if Mercedes does not leave. In the dialogue, the man acknowledges having murdered his previous wife. Upon waking up, Mercedes realizes that the married man in the dream is none other than her own husband. A few days later, Lorenzo hires a secretary, Miss Raquel. Mercedes is terrified to discover that Raquel is the woman in the dream. Soon after, Frank appears, her husband's client, who turns out to be the Sioux of the dream. Mercedes confesses to Frank about the nightmare and he, in turn, admits that on that same date he dreamed of Mercedes. After a few months, Frank and Mercedes become closer, while Lorenzo and Raquel
consummate their passion. Frank must return to the United States, so Mercedes prepares a farewell party on Christmas Eve, at which Lorenzo and Raquel attend. Mercedes overhears her husband and mistress plot to murder her with poisoned milk, and after Frank and Raquel leave, she requests it. At the same time, Frank is killed on the way to the airport in a car crash. Mercedes and Norton meet again in the afterlife." The year before he produced EL VAMPIRO, Abel Salazar produced EL CASO and also appeared as Lorenzo. Salazar co-starred with Gloria Marin, who played Mercedes in EL CASO, in director Joaquin Luis Romero Merchent's EL COYOTE and LA JUSTICIA DEL COYOTE, the latter co-written by Jesus Franco. Italian born Martha Roth played Raquel in EL CASO after co-starring with Anthony Dexter in THE BLACK PIRATES, which was produced by Robert L. Lippert in El Salvador. Like Marin, Roth soon began a career on Mexican TV. I'd love to see a copy of this movie with English subtitles some day. Interestingly, the film introduces Mercedes reading EL TERROR DE LAS PRADERAS by Karl May, which is why she sees Frank wearing an full Indian headdress in her dream.
HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA3: SUMMER VACATION (2018)
UNE CHANCE SUR DEUX, aka 1 CHANCE SUR 2, aka HALF A CHANCE (1998) - Many of the best French thrillers were inspired by the American films of the 1940s and 1950s. Unfortunately, in the 1990s, inspiration came from the newer American flicks and there is alot of silly explosive stuff in this. The film starts off as a straight-forward comedy with car thief Vanessa Paradis trying to find out which of two men is her biological father: ex-Legionnaire current auto dealer Jean-Paul Belmondo, or master thief and current restaurateur Alain Delon. Both guys are lonely bachelors who would love to have a daughter. Unfortunately, Paradis accidentally steals a car filled with millions of dollars from a Russian mobster. Eric Defosse is an cop staking out the Russian mobster who decides to allow the mobster to think that our heroes have the money, though he himself has taken the money out of the now abandoned car. There are alot of people killed in this movie, but, unfortunately, none of the ones that we want. Were they left alive because the filmmakers hope to make a sequel? The enjoyment of the film is seeing Belmondo, Delon and Paradis seemingly having alot of fun together. One of the best moments is when Delon picks up a Tommy Gun while Belmondo picks up a Mauser pistol and a bit of the theme to BORSALINO is heard on the soundtrack. Patric Leconte usually directs films of more substance, such as his next film, also with Paradis, LA FILLE SUR LE PONT.
THE MAN FROM HONG KONG, aka THE DRAGON FLIES (1975) - The directorial debut of Brian Trenchard-Smith was also the first coproduction between Hong Kong and Australian film companies. Jimmy Wang Yu is an Hong Kong cop who goes to Sydney to bring back drug courier Sammo Hung Kam-po. A sniper kills Kam-po at the airport, and Jimmy's off and running destroying bad guys and property in his one-man war against crime lord George Lazenby. I hate a movie that stops the plot cold at one point so that our hero can have a musical interlude inorder to fall in love with a woman who will be killed shortly thereafter to motivate more violence. But, Hugh Keays-Byrne plays a good cop in this and he's delightful while Frank Thring of BEN-HUR also appears.
Did not enjoy:
ACT OF VENGEANCE (1986) - Putting that title on a film starring Charles Bronson suggests a very different movie than what is delivered here. Based on a book by Trevor Armbrister about the corruption that occured during the 1969 United Mine Workers presidential election, the film doesn't feature any act of vengeance. The election saw Joseph Yablonski, played by Charles Bronson, run against the corrupt president Tony Boyle, played by Wilford Brimley. Boyle ordered Yablonski murdered, and the film mostly details how incompetent the hired killers were. Yablonski lost the election, but called on the Department of Justice to investigate fraud. Hoyt Axton played the man who hired the killers, and a very young Keanu Reeves played one of the three killers who finally did the job at the end of the movie. Yablonski's murder led not only to all of the perpetrators being prosecuted, but also to needed reforms in the UMW with Yablonski's supporters forming Miners for Democracy. The aftermath of the murder, which might qualify as an act of justice, or vengeance if you like, isn't dramatized, but only reported on with on-screen titles. Bronson, who in his youth worked as a coal miner, probably appreciated this role, with Ellen Burstyn playing his wife. Ellen Barkin played the wife of one of the killers, who uses blow jobs as a way to get her husband to try and get the money. Produced by Lorimar Productions as an HBO Premiere Film, this was directed by John Mackenzie, who also directed THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY.
BLACK BUTTERFLY (1990) - Ming Li Liao directs this silly Taiwanese crime flick in which Shan Chen plays a female assassin who becomes friends with two other women which compromises her ability to kill those her boss'targets. The action scenes in this are so outrageous it makes John Woo's THE KILLER look realistic by comparison.
CAGE (1989) - I met Lou Ferrigno shortly after this movie opened in theaters and got Ferrigno the best reviews of his movie career. He was proud of the film. In Vietnam, Ferrigno saves the life of Reb Brown, but gets a bullet in his head at the same time. Back home, Ferrigno and Brown become even closer while Ferrigno undergoes rehabilitation. Because of his brain injury, Ferrigno is mentally like a child, so Brown keeps him close as they open a bar together. Michael Dante owes Tong boss James Shigeta alot of money, so when he sees Brown and Ferrigno beat up a gang of Mexican thugs, he decides that he needs to get one of them to meet Shigeta's champion in an underground cage fight. After hiring the Mexicans to burn down our heroes' bar, Dante lures Ferrigno away with the idea that he can make enough money to rebuild the bar. It all climaxes at Shigeta's cage arena where instead of winning one fight, Ferrigno has to fight again and again. Brown takes his place for the third fight, but Shigeta still will not let them go. Mafia boss Al Ruscio demands Shigeta pay him his winnings, which causes a shootout. Luckily, our heroes survive the shootout and undercover cop Al Leong decides to turn over a briefcase of money to Brown and Ferrigno so that they can rebuild their bar. The filmmakers threaten a sequel by having Shigeta, whom everyone thinks is dead, move his fingers a little bit. In addition to all of the previously mentioned mainstays of low-budget action films of the 1980s, Danny Trejo shows up as an uncredited gangster. In 1994, director Lang Elliott reassembled the cast to make CAGE II.
COOLIE KILLER (1982) - Director Terry Tong seems to want to make a gritty and realistic gangster film, but can't resist silly over-the-top action scenes. If you are only familiar with Charlie Chin in his comedic roles opposite Jackie Chan, his dramatic turn here will be a pleasant surprise. What is it with Hong Kong filmmakers doing modern day action films having an obsession with motorcycles? Chin plays the leader of a gang of assassins who wants to change his life and turns down a new contract. Soon after, an army of killers murder his other gang members, but our hero escapes. Eventually, our hero gets revenge on the entire Hong Kong underworld.
EL CUARTO CHINO, aka THE CHINESE ROOM (1968) - Who is threatening bank owner Carlos Rivas? I would immediately suspect the butler because he is played by German Robles, who memorably played Nostradamus the vampire in three films. Could it be Dr. Guillermo Murray, who only seems to visit inorder to try and seduce Rivas' wife Elizabeth Campbell? Is it Ivan J. Rado who seems to be a Sino-phile? And what about Bing Crosby's niece, Cathy Crosby? Rivas keeps having psychedelic nightmares and sometimes tries to drown himself in the surf. From the director of SEX KITTENS GO TO COLLEGE comes this limp psychological thriller marvelously rendered on film by Gabriel Figueroa, who also shot LOS OLVIDADOS and TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARA.
FUTURE KICK (1991) - This mess provides evidence why this is the only credit for writer/director Damian Klaus. It sure looks like a film that someone tried to save in editing, with Louis Morneau being credited as "Director of Additional Sequences" and the plot structure being incoherent. The basic story takes place on the Moon, to where rich people have moved after Earth became such a mess. Jeff Pomerantz plays a VR designer, who thinks that his newest program maybe too rough, but he has to make a business trip to Earth so he leaves his wife, Meg Foster, alone. He tells her not to try out the new VR program, but after he leaves, she does. We are then thrown into a TOTAL RECALL-type scenario where Pomerantz, during his visit to Earth, gets involved in a scheme to expose "New Body", a company that has been harvesting organs from live humans. Foster seems to be pulled from the VR program by a phone call saying that her husband has been murdered. She goes to Earth, finds that the cops are useless, and ends up hiring a Freelancer, played by Don "The Dragon" Wilson. (Freelancer seems to be this future's cross between a Bounty Hunter and a Private Detective - kind of like a BLADE RUNNER.) Eventually, Foster learns that Wilson is the last of the Cyberons, a race of synthetic humans created to stop corporate crime. When the Cyberons realized that the corporations were the criminals, they turned on their masters and special units of corporate police were created to hunt down and terminate the Cyberons. In the end, Wilson and Foster find and kill Pomerantz's murderers, but it seems that the corporate police are about to terminate Wilson. At that point, Pomerantz brings Foster out of the VR program and chuckles that he warned her it was a bit rough. When reviewing Klaus' film, someone seems to have realized that the Cyberon stuff was the most interesting element, so they put that at the very beginning of the film with narrative titles - but they still kept the scene towards the end where Wilson explains all this to Foster. When it is revealed at the end that everything we saw was the VR that Foster saw, it made no sense that the film would begin with seemingly objective information. While it is kind of fun seeing a Roger Corman Concorde/New Horizon production trying to do a low-budget version of BLADE RUNNER or STRANGE DAYS, writer/director Damian Klaus is unable to keep things interesting - even with reused footage from BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS and about a dozen female nude dancers. If you ever wanted to see Don Wilson fight Christopher Penn this is the movie for you. How did singer Shawn Phillips end up doing a bit part in this?
I SHALL RETURN (1982) - South Vietnamese soldiers succeed in rescuing their commander, Chun-Hsiung Ko, from a Viet Cong camp, but not before they poke his right eye out. The soldiers suffer heavy losses on their way to the beach and the boat on which they will escape to Hong Kong. After burying their weapons on a beach, the soldiers find themselves being held-up by pirates, who destroy Ko's right hand. Illegally living in the British Crown Colony, the Vietnamese find themselves at the mercy of local gangsters and other more established Vietnamese, led by George Wang. Also after them is a local cop played by Don Wong (George Wang's real life son). Taiwanese director Ao-Hsin Chin helmed this melodrama which seemed to be partly inspired by ROLLING THUNDER as Ko sharpens the hooks of his right hand. Like the villain in ENTER THE DRAGON, Ko swaps out his hook for a knife when he gets into a brawl in a bar at which Sylvia Chang works as an hostess. A rose tattoo on the hand of one of the pirates finally leads Ko to discover that his missing wife has been prostituted by Wang. This discovery leads to her death as well as their son. So the soldiers dig up the weapons from the beach and attack Wang's club..
LITTLE SUPERMAN, aka BRUCE D-DAY AT MACAO, aka LITTLE HERO, aka KUNG FU SUPERMAN (1975) - Wong Yuen-San hopes to enlist the aid of Bruce Liang in getting some important documents from Macao to Hong Kong to aid in the fight against the Japanese. The documents are hidden in a Pipa (sort-of a Chinese banjo) and if you ever wanted to see martial artists playing keepaway with a Pipa, this is the movie for you. A very young Mang Hoi is one of the street orphans of which Liang takes care, and is as impressive as always. Ng See-Yuen's direction delivers some very impressive fight scenes, but the movie is more exhausting than fun.
RING OF FIRE (1991) - I don't think PM Entertainment Group ever made a good film, but this is fun if you're a fan of location filming in L.A.'s Chinatown. Don "The Dragon" Wilson works at an hospital and tries to convince his brother, played by Steven Vincent Leigh, to stop participating in unlicensed kick boxing fights. However, a group of white guys, who all wear Gold's Gym muscle shirts, keep egging him into fighting. Wilson falls in love with Maria Ford, the sister of one of the white guys. The fighting is put aside for a bit as our lovers deal with the politics of interracial marriage. Then the white guys kill Leigh, and Wilson faces the white guys in the arena. Naturally, the white guys cheat, but Ford takes the slash of the sword delivered by one of the white guys, so everyone seems to set aside their differences as Wilson carries her to seek medical help. Richard W. Munchkin was able to get Wilson back for a sequel in 1993. In a supporting white guy role, Gary Daniels is impressive showing that he can do anything that Jean Claude Van Damme can.
SANTO EN LA VENGANZA DE LA MOMIA, aka SANTO IN THE VENGEANCE OF THE AZTEC MUMMY, aka SANTO IN THE REVENGE OF THE AZTEC MUMMY (1971) - It was only a matter of time before the El Rey Network began to play the movies featuring El Enmascarado de Plata, but this effort, directed by Rene Cardona, was given one of the worst English dubbing jobs I've ever heard. Completely lacking in the atmosphere found in the better Black & White films, VENGEANCE OF THE MUMMY, should have been titled SILVER MASKED WRESTLER VS. MUMMY MASKED VILLAIN. Do any of these movies have decent fight scenes?
SANTO Y BLUE DEMON CONTRA EL DR. FRANKENSTEIN, aka SANTO & BLUE DEMON VS. DR. FRANKENSTEIN (1974) - If you've been waiting for a Frankenstein movie in which his decendent is named Irving and wears a wrestling mask then 1974 was the year for you. Jorge Russek of THE WILD BUNCH brings a very different interpretation to the role of Frankenstein; that of a thugish Mexican gang leader. Luckily he's stupid enough to think he can defeat our heroes in the wrestling arena with his creation - a large Black man named Golem.
SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL (1964) - The story of how Joseph Heller, the author of CATCH-22, was enticed into being a screenwriter on this project is probably more interesting than the film which resulted. If you ever wanted to see Henry Fonda and Lauren Bacall doing the twist, this is the film for you. Barbara Bouchet fans may enjoy seeing her brief appearance as a club photographer. Urged by her husband, David Brown, to assemble her articles urging single women to seek out sex outside of marriage, Helen Gurley wrote the non-fiction SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL and filled it with stories of her illicit relationships. In the movie, Helen Brown is fictionalized into being a psychologist who wrote "the best-seller" and is played by Natalie Wood. She is targeted by Tony Curtis, who works for "the filthiest rag in America", Stop magazine. He wants to prove that all of the stories in "the best-seller" are false and that Dr. Brown is secretly still a virgin. Pretending to be Henry Fonda, Curtis seeks help from Wood, saying that when he fights with his wife, he becomes "inadequate". Is this the first story in which a man pretending to be impotent as a way to seduce a woman? I saw this movie when I was about eight years old, and I didn't understand any of it. The highlight of the movie is seeing Fran Jeffries do two numbers with Count Basie and his orchestra. The gags about Tony Curtis in a woman's dressing gown looking just like Jack Lemmon are okay.
DECEMBER 7th (1943) - Producer John Ford and Gregg Toland use Korean-American actor Philip Ahn and other Asians to fan White America's fear of Japanese-Americans in this fictionalized recreation of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The short version is less annoying than the feature length original. This is the only time I've heard the Shinto religion defined as a worship of the Emperor and a recruiter for espionage. Of course this may have been true during the time of "State Shinto", which was abolished when Japan lost World War II.
UN AMOUR DE SWANN, aka SWANN IN LOVE (1984) - I do not respond well to costume dramas about jealous love in restrictive societies, and this is no exception. There's a wonderful cast: Jeremy Irons, Ornella Muti, Alain Delon, Fanny Ardant and Marie-Christine Barrault lovingly captured on film by Sven Nykvist and directed by Volker Schlondorff. I find it hard to be sympathetic to a character who has a barber come in every morning as part of his being dressed by servants, who has a jealous obsession for a courtesan - living in a society that looks down on him because he has Jewish ancestry, though his parents converted to Catholicism - that if he marries the courtesan he will shunned by polite society. My only sympathy was aroused at the end when he tells his society friend that he is dying, but the society friend still will not be introduced to his daughter.
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Charles Gilbert watched:
THE LAND UNKNOWN (1957) B&W. First movie I saw as a boy at the theater.
THE BIG COMBO (1955) B&W. Film noir written by Philip Yordan with Cornel Wilde and beautiful wife Jean Wallace who formed Theodora Productions. He's a cop named Leonard Diamond on a mission to nab hood Mr. Brown (Richard Conte). Brown has henchman Fanny and Mingo (Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holliman) and an aging has-been whom he brow beats (Brian Donlavy).
BEACH RED (1967) Another Theodora Production with WW2 theme. U.S. Army soldiers invade a Japanese island stronghold. Much introspection on both sides displayed in flashback; mostly in still shots.
STORM FEAR (1955) B&W. Theodora Productions adapted this story from author Horton Foote. It's a rather overdramatized tale of three criminals led by Charlie (Cornel Wilde) holding up in a New England farm house where lives his older decrepit brother (Dan Duryea) and the latter's teary-eyed wife (Jean Wallace) who was once the lover of the younger. The teen son is played by David Stollery (Disney child actor) who went on to forsake tinseltown for industrial engineering (He designed the Toyota Celica). How did the censors give nod to the scenes with him sleeping with his mother?
THE BIG BLUFF (1956) B&W. Universal Pictures alumnus Martha Vickers plays a well healed single with a terminal heart condition. Upon moving from NYC to LA she is courted by impecunious playboy John Garfield who exploits her wealth to fund another affair with Rosemary Stack.
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David Deal enjoyed:
RAISE HELL: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MOLLY IVINS (19) - Good documentary on the popular Texan journalist.
OLD FIREHAND, aka THUNDER AT THE BORDER (66) - Pierre Brice teams up with trapper Rod Cameron to fend off the gang of Harald Leipnitz in this colorful Winnetou western directed by Alfred Vohrer. Good characters and lots of action. Also features Nadia Gray and Rick Battaglia.
HOLIDAY IN SPAIN (61) - AKA Scent of Mystery. While visiting Spain, author Denholm Elliot is drawn into a mystery with his faithful cab driver, Peter Lorre. Enjoyable Cinerama travelogue is a visual feast.
Mildly enjoyed:
KILL AND PRAY (67) - AKA Requiescant. When Lou Castel was a kid, his family was brutally murdered by Mark Damon. Lou was shot in the head and lost his memory. When he learns the truth, he goes revengin'. Eventually. Carlo Lizzani's spaghetti has all the plot elements necessary for our entertainment except for a deep cast. Pier Paolo Pasolini has a small role.
ANIMAL (77) - AKA Stuntwoman. French "comedy" about the love/hate relationship between stunt persons Jean-Paul Belmondo and Raquel Welch. The movie's terrible, Raquel's a dreamboat.
THE PSYCHIC (77) - From 2008: "I enjoyed Fulci's giallo and would recommend it to fans of the genre. Jennifer O'Neal looks great and the story is intriguing. That said, it is by no means a classic. The rest of the cast is nothing special and the music sounds like a watered down version of the score for a better movie. And while the photography is good, there are no real iconic or surreal images to enjoy."
KNIFE OF ICE (72) - Carroll Baker, shocked voiceless by childhood trauma, is suddenly thrust into a series of sex maniac murders. Umberto Lenzi's final flick with Baker is a sexless, bloodless Hitchcockian affair with a solid final twist.
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Bertrand Van Wonterghem enjoyed:
Flukt (2012, Roar Utaugh)
Ssauja Gwisina / Bring it on, ghost - season 1 – episode 10 (2016, Park Jun Hwa)
Tension (1949, John Berry)
Gintama - episode 18 (2006)
Fawlty towers - season 1 – episode « A touch of class » (1975, John Howard Davies)
Department S episode « The pied piper of Hambledown » (1968, Roy Ward Baker)
Mildly enjoyed:
Mile 22 (2018, Peter Berg)
Future man – season 2 – episode 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10
Did not enjoy
The counsellor (2013, Ridley Scott)
Filles de joie (2020, Frédéric Fonteyne & Anne Paulicevich)
La grande récré (1975, Claude Pierson)
Galaxy of terror (1981, Bruce D. Clark)
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